cobweb
Americannoun
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cobwebs
plural
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a web spun by a spider to entrap its prey.
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a single thread spun by a spider.
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something resembling a cobweb; anything finespun, flimsy, or insubstantial.
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a network of plot or intrigue; an insidious snare.
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cobwebs, confusion, indistinctness, or lack of order.
I'm so tired my head is full of cobwebs.
verb (used with object)
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to cover with or as with cobwebs.
Spiders cobwebbed the cellar.
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to confuse or muddle.
Drunkenness cobwebbed his mind.
noun
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a web spun by certain spiders, esp those of the family Theridiidae, often found in the corners of disused rooms
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a single thread of such a web
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something like a cobweb, as in its flimsiness or ability to trap
Usage
What does cobweb mean? Cobweb is another word for a spider web. But cobweb is most commonly used to refer to the kind of dusty old spider webs that hang in the corners of places that haven’t been used or cleaned in a long time, like attics and abandoned houses. For that reason, cobweb is often used in expressions like clean out the cobwebs, meaning to do something to clear your mind or make it function normally again, perhaps after a period of inactivity or confusion. Cobweb can also be used as a verb, meaning to cover in cobwebs, as in No one had entered the study for years, and spiders had cobwebbed the entire bookcase. Example: The abandoned house was dusty and full of cobwebs.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of cobweb
1275–1325; Middle English coppeweb, derivative of Old English -coppe spider (in ātorcoppe poison spider); cognate with Middle Dutch koppe; see web
Explanation
A cobweb is the net of sticky threads that a spider weaves to catch insects. You can also call a cobweb a spider's web. A cobweb is any spider's web, although some people use it to specify the dense, tangled type of web that certain spiders weave, or to mean a dusty old web, like the ones you might see in your grandparents' attic. Cobweb can also describe some intricate or complicated things: "She got lost in the cobweb of unfamiliar subway lines in the city." It comes from the Old English coppeweb, from the now-obsolete coppe, "spider."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Why ask someone else to climb a stepladder to reach a cobweb?
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 5, 2026
Make a homemade spider toss game that transforms your living room floor into a huge cobweb.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2025
House and cobweb spiders challenge them, and brown widows often go on to coexist with them peacefully.
From New York Times ● Mar. 13, 2023
L.A. was once wetlands fed by the cobweb streams and marshes of the L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2021
He has a cobweb threading his dark hair.
From "The Light in Hidden Places" by Sharon Cameron
That was once the HBO way, after all: taking a chance on new visions, instead of blowing the cobwebs off old ones.
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2026
"And when we added the methyl groups back to the genes, they turned off again. So, these compounds aren't cobwebs -- they're anchors."
From Science Daily ● Jan. 5, 2026
She plans to sweep away the cobwebs and inject warmth and life into a farm mired in portentous dialogue and unmentionable secrets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
The collection had been tucked under a pile of old newspapers and cobwebs in the attic of their family home, according to a press release from Heritage Auctions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2025
In the den that smelled of camphorated cobwebs he found himself facing a kind of dusty iguana whose lungs whistled when he breathed.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Jackson’s injury creates a fresh opportunity for the agents of cobwebbed quarterbacks looking for a home.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2026
In the evenings, we watched Algerian television in a small room with a corrugated iron roof and a single, low-energy bulb hanging from the cobwebbed ceiling.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 29, 2018
Yet his adventures ensnare us in that cobwebbed state of mind when even the most innocent exchanges between strangers can acquire an ominous tone.
From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2018
Now she’s ditching her boyfriend Steve and resolving to avenge her pal’s sticky, cobwebbed demise.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 9, 2017
Dallas and Florida had racked up hundreds of hours in the Thinking Corner, the damp, dark, cobwebbed corner of the basement.
From "Ruby Holler" by Sharon Creech
With rich detail he told readers about one Pierre Grantaire who made a good living by raising and selling spiders for the spurious cobwebbing of wine bottles.
From Time Magazine Archive
Many a foreign line will also be flying them, cobwebbing the steadily shrinking globe with faster routes.
From Time Magazine Archive
There is still the cobwebbing music from beyond and now also a musty cardboard stench in the alley and the frequent whiff of garbage.
From "How It Went Down" by Kekla Magoon
When she had watched him tramp up the muddy slope from the bank to the street, Alexander lifted her chin and tossed her head, as if to shake away some cobwebbing thought from the brain.
From A Pagan of the Hills by Charles Neville Buck
The inevitable thin lines of mist are already cobwebbing the horizons; but there is a good breeze abroad to-day and the clouds are not resting so quietly in the niches as usual.
From A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees by Edwin Asa Dix
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